NHP's focus is on preventive care but how much is being spent?

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Preventive healthcare is a potential solution to tackle India's health issues. According to National Health Monitor estimates, almost 6.7 per cent (Rs. 30,420 crores) is spent on preventive care. Skewed doctor patient ratio and a shift of disease burden from communicable to non-communicable diseases highlight the importance of preventive healthcare in India. The govt in power also claims to focus on preventive healthcare, yet a dismal part is being spent on preventive healthcare.

Govt health spending has to reach 2.5% of GDP by 2025 but how?

National Health Policy 2017 says govt spending on health must reach 2.5% of GDP by 2025 but currently government spending on health is just 1.4% of GDP. Total govt spending on health by the Centre and states was Rs 2.3 lakh crore. To reach a target of 10.6 lakh crores (which is 2.5% of GDP) govt needs to invest at least 19% per annum. However, this year's central budget on health is nowhere close to these figures.

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The Prasad Institute of Medical Sciences and 45 other medical colleges were barred from admitting students because these colleges were found to have sub-standard facilities. They allegedly paid money to judges to get favourable verdict.

The investigations carried out by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, UK and The Hindu newspaper of India reveal how India’s negligence to combat the use of antibiotic like colistin is leading to worldiwde drug resistance.

The Parliament Standing Committee is examining a bill which will provide new thrust to medical education in India. While many may disagree, there is unanimity on the need to dissolve the MCI in its current avatar.

To celebrate the new year, the GEN has gathered experts to put together a list of resolutions for 2018; things we, as data journalists, should stop or start doing, things we should create, technologies we should try.

The government's new National Health Protection Scheme could be a game changer for as many as 500 million people in need and unable to afford healthcare. But some issues remain unaddressed.

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What makes Delhi's air so poisonous?

Air pollution has made Delhi infamous across the world. Delhi-NCR has almost become a gas chamber and the onset of winter witnesses worst air pollution levels. We tend to accuse the farmers for burning stubble in bordering states but there are other sources of toxic air within Delhi according to a study by IIT-Kanpur. Road dust and vehicle pollution are the top two contributors to poor air-quality levels according to the study.

Gap between India's healthcare staff

Nurses are the backbone of health system and hospitals. Currently, India has more than 1.7 million nurses but needs two million nurses to cater to the growing healthcare demands. In India, nurse shortages occur at every level of the health-care system. The data show that the states with the worst health-care human resource shortages are also the ones with the poor health indicators and high mortality rates.

Half of India's AIDS deaths in 3 states

An estimated 49000 people died from AIDS-related illnesses in 2016 and more than 31000 till October 2017. Three big states are responsible for maximum number of deaths in India. Approximately, half of AIDS related deaths are confined to Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Although, a steady decline has been witnessed over the past four years but new pockets of infections have emerged in Gujarat, Bihar, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

Stillbirths haunts the world's poor

The world has made huge progress in reducing child mortality during the past decade – nearly halved from 12 million to 6.6 million. Yet, developing nations continue to suffer. Pakistan, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and Bangladesh are the top ten countries with highest rate of stillbirths and neonatal deaths on day of birth (per 1,000 total births). According to various studies, 98% of stillbirths occur in low- and middle-income countries.

Data Boot Camps

Health Analytics India (HAI) is a data journalism initiative dedicated to provide the most illuminating reporting on healthcare. We’re not going to blindly accept the data, but we’re not going to be blind to it either.

Syed Nazakat, Editor-in-Chief of Health Analytics India

Journalists reporting on traumatic situations and disease such as Ebola, cholera, or HIV-Aids need to develop specialist skills for such work. Their tool kit needs to include techniques such as empathy, less talking - more listening, and a critical need to get the facts right.

When I was the Director General of
CSIR, we had started a public–private partnership called
New Millennium Indian Technology Leadership Initiative,
which was directed exclusively towards affordable
excellence. That was a game-changer. We need to launch
national grand challenges for vaccines to therapeutics to
tablets. We did make the US$ 35 Akash tablet, after all.

R.A. Mashelkar, noted Scientist and innovator who holds a long list of directorships, degrees and awards, all focused on advancing science and inclusive innovation in India.

Telling the Ebola story with data is a challenging task, how to paint a picture of numbers that inform about the seriousness while neither underplaying [and] nor being alarmist? There has been problematic data reporting…but there’s been solid data journalism too.

Sharron Lovell is a multimedia storyteller and educator. She is based in Beijing and lectures on multimedia journalism.

The essential drug list becomes more relevant when the drug market is flooded with many nonessential, irrational drugs for which safer, equally effective & cheaper essential alternatives exist.

Dr Mira Shiva, MD, is one of the leading voices of public health in India and coordinator at the Initiative for Health & Equity in Society.

We​ ​crunch the numbers, investigate the issues behind the numbers and turn them into fact and figure based stories that matter to the people.Our aim is to make Health Analytics India a single-point source of healthcare data and information in ​India.​

Nabeela Khan Inayati, Assistant Editor, Health Analytics India

"If we look at the cancer crisis closely, there is nothing like a new pattern of cancer, but the type of cancer which is predominant in an area keeps changing. It changes every ten years. For instance, earlier, the common cancer in America was tobacco related but that has changed now because the awareness has increased."

"India provides low cost drugs not only to its citizens but also to most developing countries. Hence, the measures to control prices of drugs must be matched with those to safeguard our sovereignty in drug manufacturing, whether by public or private companies. It is this that will finally result in availability of drugs at affordable prices and will ensure that we move forward towards Universal Health Assurance."

It’s commendable that the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare is making efforts to be more data-driven by providing district-level estimates for the first time with NFHS-4, there are still loopholes that need to be plugged.